Greed and Kindness negate each other

When a person sets a goal or commitment to move himself up the social ladder from his current (mostly, not inadequate) status, his desire to make a marked improvement in his social status begins to fuel his greed for ‘more of something for himself’. Soon after he has set a goal of wanting more of something for himself, he begins to turn a blind eye to the needs of others, the compassion in him dwindles to almost negligible and he begins to feel indifferent and cold hearted about anything that has nothing to do with achieving his goal. Every day, he feels unhappy because he has not achieved his goal, yet. He turns more inwards and begins to tell himself constantly, “Since I am so far off my goal, I do not have the capacity or resources to be kind to others.” Kindness is automatically locked deep at the bottom of his heart.

Does goal setting negate kindness?

If you were to read a self-inspiring book or attend a self-enrichment course, you shall find out the theme of the book or course lays down a three point plan for the readers. First, acknowledges his current status is severely lacking in many ways. Second, points to setting an aspiring goal is the first step on the right path of getting out of the current undesirable state. Third, from then onwards, locks in all his time and focus all his effort on his goal and ignores everything else that has nothing to do with his goal. In other words, all self-enrichment books and courses teach one to establish a lifestyle evolving around his greed with goals like: “I want to be better in …”, “I want to have more money”, “I want more of everything.” All these goals centers on, “My personal interests always come first.”

This is not what kindness is!

A kind person does not put his own interests first but rather, places the interest of others ahead of him. Kindness means sacrificing something or letting go of something for the good of others. Often, the sacrificed ‘something’ is either, time or money. However, these self-enrichment books or courses, teach the readers precisely this statement: You have only two resources, time and money. Within 24 hours a day, you must optimize its output by leveraging on other people’s time. With whatever money you have, you must invest it where it gives you the highest returns.

The world today is full of people chasing their dreamed opportunity to make it rich in the shortest time possible. Every morning when they opened their eyes, their minds are tuned to listening to where-about an opportunity that could lead them a big step nearer to their dreamed goal. Do they ever set aside some time to look at the plight of the poor and needy people and volunteer to do something for them? Often the answer is, “No time. Not me. Not now.”

No time for kindness. Not me to proffer kindness. Why?

“Not now” gives us the clearest clue. Not now because I have not achieve my goal in life, yet. Even one had achieved his goal he might quickly reset his goal to much higher benchmarks, say, from being a millionaire to a ten-millionaire to a hundred-millionaire or a billionaire. “Not now” therefore, becomes a repeating excuse.

Summing up, would you set a self-glorifying goal in life?

Yes, you shall set a goal in life. However, please do not set a lofty goal that is way gobbles up all your time and resources. Leave ample time and resources to perform kindnesses, at least one kindness a day.